The Partnerships Technical Bureau in Kuwait (PTB) is pushing ahead with its plans to develop a new metro system for Kuwait City with the higher committee approving the feasibility study recently.

The PTB will shortly issue expression of interest (EOI) for the procurement of the integrated rolling stock and systems PPP company, a statement said. The selected company will provide rolling stock and Metro systems to the entire network, across all five phases.

The EOI will be followed in due course by procurements for civil infrastructure and operations for Phase 1, it said.

The Kuwait Metropolitan Rapid Transit System Project (KMRT) is a key aspect of Kuwait's strategy to address population growth challenges and the current public transport deficit.

KMRT is being implemented by the Ministry of Communications under the auspices of PTB as per the PPP Law No.7/2008.

The project will involve the development, financing, construction, operation and maintenance of a full metro network that will be developed over five phases. Each phase will be subdivided into a number of separate procurements; each of these will be publicly tendered on a fair and transparent basis in accordance with the PPP law, said the statement.

The entire project consists of 69 stations (16 per cent underground) with total length of 160 km. PTB is currently focusing on delivering phase 1 of the project which will include the construction network of roughly 50 km, with 28 new stations, 30 per cent of which will be underground.

The other four phases will be developed and constructed in future stages over the coming years as demand grows, said the statement.

The PTB had appointed a transaction advisory team of Ernst & Young, Ashurst and Atkins to prepare the feasibility study and to  prepare for the procurement stage, including metro infrastructure, control systems, rolling stock, depot and operations.

The Higher Committee, chaired by the Minister of Finance, recently approved the feasibility study of the project along with the procurement structure and packages. These packages include a system integrator PPP company, four Infrastructure PPP companies and an operator.

In addition, the PTB has communicated to the Cabinet the recommended financing structure of the project that includes a government subsidy due to the size and strategic importance of the KMRT Project, the statement said.

PTB, established under a decree, considers governmental projects and unsolicited proposals forwarded by the Higher Committee to identify potential developmental projects that can be implemented by establishing a partnership between both the relevant public entity and interested parties from the private sector in accordance with the provisions of the law regulating all Public Private Partnerships (PPP) projects in Kuwait.- TradeArabia News Service